Contents

The Blog

The front page of www.i3detroit.com runs on Wordpress, and features articles written by members. ANY MEMBER can post! Suggested topics include:

Upcoming events

Event recaps

Project kickoffs / work-days

Project write-ups

Project featured elsewhere so check it out

Opinion/editorial

To get a Wordpress account created, post on the members' mailing list and ask for it. Wordpress lets you pick your own public-facing name which will appear at the top of all the posts you write, so specify this in the request, otherwise the person creating the account will make one up for you.

The Mailing Lists

Slack (chat)

Slack is a modern chat system with Native mobile apps, Desktop apps and a web app. It saves all history by default and allows you to share files and create text snippets. There are Channels that correspond to large groups many people might be interested in for a conversation or project coordination, and there are also Direct Messages and private group chat.

This is meant to fill a perceived gap in our communication channels. While all members need to be on the mailing list for important updates and the most basic coordination, we don't necessarily want long conversational threads or multiple threads for big topics. The IRC channel is great but a lot of members have mentioned they had a hard time using it in a way that would be as convenient. In fact it is just like IRC if you had your own network (tabula rasa on channels) and were really great at setting it up, creating bots, hosting shared files, and implementing APIs to work with other services. Oh and if you could use emjoii, have inline images, edit previous posts, pin text snippets and star things to make a list of favorite or attention needing items. So Slack is for casual, project, and space wide conversation or project planning..

In regards to etiquette, slack is designed for small-ish businesses so it expects that you would be respectful. Channel invites are auto-join and public topics are adjustable by anyone. If we find people behaving inappropriately they can be removed as this is not essential for membership.

Email one of the admin's to be invited.

Update! You can now self-invite by logging into your CRM account and hitting the "services" tab.

Are you coordinating an event or big/public project? You might want to make a channel and invite the stakeholders.

Want to see what a SIG (special interest group) is up to? check out their channel

Have a small project that you are working on with one or two other people? Make a private group

want to stay up to date on general i3 business or be chatty? check out #general or #offtopic and talk about slack or get help on #meta

After you have registered

Be sure to fill out your slack profile. Remembering 150 peoples names is hard, remembering all of their usernames too is near impossible. To be extra helpful you can also upload a picture of your face.

Google Calendar

Every member is allowed to post stuff here, but setting up the credentials is manual so it's done on demand. For write access (as with most of i3's online stuff), ask on the members-only Mailing list.

If you only need to post infrequently, and would rather not bother getting access, you can email Nate B or (other volunteers here) with the following info:

Date, time, and duration.

What part of the space (zone, commons, classroom, off-site)

Any blurb you'd like to include or link to (email thread, eventbrite, etc)

And if it's a recurring event, how often and when it recurs. Though in this case you should probably do it yourself so you can manage cancellations, etc.

Once you have write access, creating an event is as simple as clicking on the calendar like you'd normally do, then picking the "i3Detroit" calendar as the place to create it. Use this carefully! -- several members have accidentally put personal stuff on the group calendar, and that can be embarrassing!

Twitter

Since we don't have any paid staff, and thus don't have regular "open" hours, we needed a way to tell the world when it was OK to visit. That mechanism is the Twitterbot. Physically, it's a switch right by the door, which any member can throw when they enter the space, if they feel like inviting guests. (It's expected that they'll turn it off again when this is no longer the case.)

When the switch is thrown, two things happen:

The top-right box on the website indicates "The space is OPEN FOR GUESTS" instead of "Closed, come back later".

A tweet goes out on @i3detroit saying something to the above effect, possibly including a photo taken at the moment the switch was thrown.

Facebook

The Telephone

Goodness! An old-fashioned telephone?

Yes! Well, not exactly, there's VOIP 'twixt the two ends. But still, it's accessible on the PSTN, so it counts. It's at +1-248-556-9995 and rings inside the space. IF YOU HEAR A PHONE RINGING IN THE SPACE, PLEASE ANSWER IT. It's probably someone who saw the twitterbot change state, and wants to call-ahead before coming for a visit. Sometimes it's a news reporter or something. Do what you see fit, but if you feel the call needs followup, jot down the details and post to the members' list, above.

IRC

Like most open-source projects, we're on Freenode. Channel is #i3detroit. The easiest way to join is by clicking the "Web chat" link on the front page of i3detroit.com, which will open a browser-based chat client and plunge you right in. Say hi, then be patient because not all of us are at our keyboards all the time! "Drive-by greeting" is considered poor IRC etiquette, so stick around a few minutes! If you can install and run a real client, or use a shell session for persistence, that's better.

EventBrite

Eventbrite is just for things with a limited number of seats where people need to reserve seats ahead of time. Also it can charge admission but that's horrible and we try to avoid using it that way. More info at HOWTO_Host_an_event_at_i3detroit.

The Wiki

Yeah, the one you're reading right now. Account creation is manual, but not actually restricted to members-only, because we've had a few outsiders interested in contributing. See HOWTO_Get_a_Wiki_Account. As with all wikis, Be Bold!

Contact@i3detroit Email

This goes to a handful of Board members, and might be useful if -public isn't appropriate but you don't know who to talk to. Really it's a PITA so consider it a last resort.